1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic scale system including a plurality of interconnected electronic scales and, more particularly, to such an electronic scale system capable of registering merchandise data in electronic scales and of totalling data items obtained by the electronic scales.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic scale systems are required to register data for weighed goods or articles of merchandise in the electronic scales. There has been proposed an electronic scale capable of registering or storing merchandise data such as a unit price, a tare, an effective period, and the like of weighed articles for each of available article items, as disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 55(1980)-142216.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 59(1984)-34121 discloses a data calling process for delivering registered (stored) merchandise data from any of a plurality of interconnected electronic scales.
The above data calling process is advantageous in that since the memories of the respective electronic scales can be shared during use, many merchandise data items can be scattered and stored among the electronic scales, and hence the efficiency of the memories is increased. However, the procedure for registering merchandise data in these memories is complex as described below.
(1) The electronic scales are commonly positioned at different physical locations. The operator uses numeral keys on a ten-key pad and function keys of a first electronic scale to register merchandise data one by one until the memory overflows, whereupon the operator memorizes or notes the name of the last article item entered. Then, the operator goes to the second electronic scale where data for other articles items are registered until memory overflow occurs in the second scale, whereupon the registering procedure is finished for the second electronic scale. The above process is repeated until data for all article items are registered.
(2) Where some merchandise data items have already been registered in the electronic scales, the operator finds an electronic scale with a memory having an unregistered or unused area, and registers new article data in that electronic scale.
When registering article data in each of the electronic scales, the operator memorizes or notes the name of the article item when the memory overflows, and goes to the next electronic scale, thus preventing the same article item from being registered in two different electronic scales. Whether an electronic scale has an unregistered memory area, i.e., new article data can be registered, can be determined only by setting the electronic scale to a data register mode. This is because when all data items for an article item cannot be stored, i.e., the data items can be stored only partly, the electronic scale notifies the operator by producing an overflow alarm. Therefore, it is time-consuming to check to see if the memory of a certain electronic scale can register merchandise data or not.
As a consequence, the procedure for registering merchandise data in the conventional electronic scale data calling process has been tedious and time-consuming.
As disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 58(1983)-10298, there has been developed an electronic scale system including a plurality of electronic scales to be installed in a department store or a supermarket, for example, the electronic scales being connected to a single totalling device for totalling data items delivered from the respective electronic scales.
The electronic scale system of the above type cannot total data items when they overflow the capacity of the memory of the totalling device. To avoid this shortcoming, the following routines have to be carried out:
(1) To prevent a memory overflow, the operator pushes a print key of the totalling device once a day, e.g., after the store has been closed, so that the daily total can be printed. Thereafter, the memory of the totalling device is cleared in preparation for the totalling process for the next working day.
(2) At the end of each month, the printed total data items for the respective days are manually added by the operator to prepare a one-month total list.
(3) If the operator wants to know the sales for each hour, the operator has to press the print key to print a hourly total and this clears the memory. After the store has been closed, the operator must prepare an hourly total list or graph based on the printed total data.
Since the prior electronic scale system has required the operator to do the above jobs, it has suffered the following problems:
(1) Inasmuch as the operator must periodically total data items, print the totalled data, and clear the memory on the totalling device, the operation required of the totalling device is time-consuming. If the operator forgets to perform the operation, the memory of the totalling device tends to overflow.
(2) It takes a lengthy period of time and is quite tedious for the operator to prepare a total list.
(3) The preparation of a total list is burdensome on the operator since the operator is required to press the print key at each of each period of time, e.g., one hour, and hence to be always watching the time. Another problem is that many means are required to produce various article data to be used in the electronic scale system, in each electronic scale or the totalling device.